It doesn’t always work out

I pride myself on being a competent baker, so it’s a matter of personal indignity when something goes wrong. Saturday was clearly a bad day, because not only did I mess something up once, I then made the same mistake again.

I was inspired to make fridge cake by my colleague Nell, whose birthday was last week. She occasionally brings in the most delicious specimens, studded with Maltesers and ginger biscuits. I also have fond memories of making something known as “Mountain Cake” at primary school – chocolate, butter and syrup melted together with broken biscuits and dried fruit.

Our oven has been broken for a month now, and I can’t bake anything. So the idea of making some tasty no-bake “‘Smores” fridge fudge was tempting. But something went wrong while I was melting the chocolate. Either it got too hot, or water got in. Or it was just a crappy recipe. Either way, I ended up with a grainy, sticky mess that looked more like soil (or poo, depending how strong your stomach is) rather than a smooth fudge. My housemates are slowly picking at it with a spoon – and it is indeed tasty – but certainly not something I could take to work.

May I present to you Fridge cake FAIL number 1:

Hmmmm... I'd rate this as a 3 on the Bristol Stool Scale. We still ate it though, and it was NOM!

But no. This time it was worse. Not only did the chocolate seize again, but it separated horribly while I was mixing in the biscuits and dried fruit. It looked revolting. Worse than the contents of a toddler’s nappy. There was no saving it, and it ended up on a one-way trip to the compost bin:

Blurgh! You can just see the separated liquid seeping out round the edges. Nice.

I am kicking myself that I have twice screwed up making something that the eight-year-old me used to knock up without even thinking.

What on earth am I doing wrong? Is the chocolate mixture getting too hot? Should I have done it in the microwave instead of a double-boiler? Or am I just getting cocky and the Domestic Goddess is kicking me in the arse?

I’d love to hear your tips and recipes for making successful fridge cake. Also please share your kitchen failures, and make me feel a bit better about it all.

My old flat had a gas oven that was hot at the back and cool at the front, if indeed it got hot enough at all. My housemates gleefully described the results of one try at making a chocolate sponge as “biscake” – two large, round and really rather flat discs that could have been put to use as frisbees on Hampstead Heath. Tasted pretty good, all the same.

When making truffles at Christmas, my chocolate curdled/went grainy and so I let it cool a bit before zizzing it with a handheld blender. I guess you can’t do that if there are things in the cake, however.

I’ve never heard of fridge cake! What an interesting concept. I suspect the 8 year old you possibly made more or less the same cakes but the novelty and excitement made those cakes seem perfect, whereas you’ve had more experience of cake optimisation and can now spot when you’ve had a cakefail…?

When I was eight-ish I made some chocolate cake and forgot to put the eggs in; they weren’t awfully successful. My cakes are always more biscuit like (not great risers) than cake like; my mum says I need to use cornflour more. I think it would also help if I didn’t get distracted by the raw cake mix.

If you were using a double boiler, did the water from the saucepan/bottom touch the bottom of the boiler and cause condensation? My dad (el baker) always says that it’s water that makes chocolate grainy.